How to Hire Top Developers in Ukraine

Author

Daxx Team

Posted

Oct 23, 2018

Ukraine

Talented software engineers are a little like diamonds: they’re hard to find and expensive to get. If software development isn’t at the core of your business and your development needs are mostly short-term and not especially complicated, you’ll be just fine asking a nearby development company to help you out. But what if you have your own software development business and can’t find the right engineers to hire locally, or are struggling to compete for talent with tech giants who can offer far more impressive salaries and perks?

Don’t start to panic, the above issues are solvable—all you need is to simply broaden the horizon of your search and Eastern Europe is a great destination to start. For example, if you hire developers in Ukraine, you will not only solve the issue of local tech talent shortage but also receive top-level developers for a reasonable price. Our article shares a number of ideas about how to hire Ukrainian developers. We’ll discuss why Ukrainian developers are in such high demand these days and which practices will help you find the most suitable candidates.

Ukrainian Software Development Talent Market

In recent years, the Ukrainian software development market has been growing rapidly, making the country one of the largest IT hubs in Eastern Europe. Recent statistics estimate that there are currently almost 166k software developers in Ukraine. According to the 2016 HackerRank report, Ukraine is in 11th place among countries where you can hire best software developers. Ukraine has also been featured on the list of countries with the largest number of software developers to start coding between 5 and 10 years old. This pattern of early education indicates Ukraine’s potential for tech innovation and growth.

Apart from a rich culture of early tech education, software development in Ukraine is also facilitated through a wide range of educational opportunities for adults. There are 70+ private IT schools and dozens of university faculties with tech specializations that are producing 35k+ software developers annually in Ukraine. It is also important to mention that Ukraine ranks second when it comes to countries with the greatest number of IT professionals in Europe. So when you decide to outsource your software development to Ukraine you’ll have access to a wide talent pool.

Hire Software Programmers in Ukraine with Daxx

Daxx is a technical partner with extensive experience in building custom-recruited software development teams in Ukraine. Daxx has three offices in the main Ukrainian tech hubs—Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro. Daxx is experienced in building and retaining teams of different sizes and specializations: for example, you can hire either one developer in a popular technology or build a large software development team that will use a rare technology.

How to Hire the Best Developers in Ukraine?

The Ukrainian software development market is highly competitive, meaning a top-level developer might receive several job offers at a time. To stay ahead of the curve, business owners need to make sure their offers reflect the candidates’ desires. Here is some of our time-tested advice in order to hire best developers in Ukraine:

First of all, you need to attract the right candidates and in order to do this—make your vacancy description as detailed as possible.

Provide feedback after each interview round no later than 1-2 days—this will show the candidate you’re still interested in hiring a developer in Ukraine.

Outline your business/project requirements clearly and inform your recruiters even if there are any minor changes. This will help them find the candidates that best fit your needs.

Make sure that the development of your product presupposes challenging tasks and creates space for personal and professional growth.

Show candidates that you’re interested not only in hiring a high-quality developer but that you also want to see the personality behind the work. Ukrainian developers look forward to becoming an integral part of a great innovative environment.

Establish clear communication with candidates during the interview process to demonstrate that you’re also interested in regular communication.

Promote flexibility. Ukrainian developers rank good work-life balance as one of the most important factors when hunting for jobs. A flexible schedule and remote cooperation are great ways to improve employees’ work-life balance.

Interestingly, certain skills are far more widespread in Ukraine than elsewhere in the world. The country leads the ranking globally when it comes to Unity3D and C++ engineers, and is second in terms of the number of JavaScript and Magento developers.

Ukraine ranks third in the world as measured by the number of PHP, Node.js, Ruby, ASP.NET, and Python developers.

Ukraine takes the second place by the number of Scala developers among other locations, which indicates that the country also has a good run when it comes to functional programming. Here you can build either a team consisting exclusively of Scala developers or add other functional tech stacks, like F#, Erlang, or Haskell, to your cross-functional team.

It’s not easy to find Scala programmers no matter what the location, but with a technical partner like Daxx, it won’t be a problem for you and your company. Daxx has access to a large tech talent pool, which helped us build a Scala development team for our business client in cybersecurity.

Want to learn more about setting up an extended development team with us?

What Is a Ukrainian Developer’s Salary?

The hourly rate of decent software developers in Ukraine is in the range of $25–$50 per hour. While the monthly salary of a junior developer can cost about $1500, the average Ukrainian developer salary can vary between $2500 and $4000 per month (excluding taxes and social contributions). However if you need a developer with rare tech skills or a senior developer, these figures can reach up to around $5000.

Access to a wide tech talent pool. We find Ukrainian developers that fit your requirements. Then, you personally choose the best candidates.

Fast setup. Usually it only takes up to 6 weeks maximum to find the developers that fit your business needs.

Direct management. You can use whatever management methods and communication tools you like—your remote developers in Ukraine are part of your local team.

Commitment. Your offshore development team in Ukraine works exclusively for you. They won’t be distracted by other projects and are only interested in contributing to the development of your product.

Your own contact person. You’ll have an HR/Client Manager who’ll be the facilitator between you and your remote team. This professional ensures the well-being of your cooperation with your Ukrainian developers.

No payment in advance. You don’t have to pay anything until you make the final decision to hire developers in Ukraine with Daxx.

Flexibility. You can increase or decrease your remote development team with one month advance notice.

Where to Find Developers for Hire in Ukraine?

Good software engineers with solid backgrounds aren’t just going to fall into your lap. These developers are in high demand and receive multiple job offers almost every day. You’ll stand a much better chance at getting them interested in your project while casually chatting with them at tech events or via online communities, rather than sending them a generic LinkedIn message.

Here are a few of the best places to hire top developers in Ukraine, both on and offline, including:

Conferences

Hackathons and contests

Online communities

Development schools

Open-source code contributors

Conferences

Conferences are great for meeting developers who genuinely love what they do. In Ukraine, there are numerous tech events happening every month, and below are just a few of them.

Java Day is the largest event dedicated exclusively to Java and Java-related technologies in the country. Java Days take place every year in Ukraine’s major tech cities — Kyiv, Lviv, and Kharkiv.

AgileEE, which stands for Agile Eastern Europe, is the largest and most well-known Agile conference in the region. It’s been held annually since 2009 in Kyiv, the country’s capital and largest tech city.

Since 2009, some 2130 guests from all over the world have visited AgileEE, including a wide range of top-tier industry professionals from the US, Canada, and Western Europe.

SQLSaturdays are local meetings for SQL Server professionals. They’re supported by the global SQL Saturday program, which organizes meetups all over the world. We’re proud to say that Daxx sponsors all SQLSaturday events in Dnipro.

Drupal events are hosted by the Ukrainian Drupal community, which is made up of over 6000 members. Its meetups take place in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Lutsk, Rivne, Dnipro, and other cities.

Here are a few more resources that allow you to keep track of all the hottest tech events in Ukraine:

Meetup and Eventbrite list all the events that are held in or near a city you type into their search bars (Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Odessa are the most thriving tech hubs, so the majority of Ukrainian tech events happen in these cities). To narrow down your search, select “Tech” as the event category.

Event calendars on AIN and DOU. Please note that these two resources are only available in Russian and Ukrainian.

Hackathons and Contests

A hackathon is an event where IT professionals collaborate non-stop to create new products, as well as an excellent talent-discovery opportunity for those who are looking to hire software engineers. Most hackathons last from 10 to 48 hours. Usually, hackathons are dedicated to a specific theme, so you should only target those where you can expect to meet Ukrainian software developers with the skills that are relevant to you.

SpinOffHack, which was held simultaneously in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Lviv in March 2016, enabled Ukrainian Engineering, Software Development, and Marketing students to develop and present their concepts in front of a jury from local tech companies and business incubators.

Media Hack Weekend is a hackathon and an innovative project on the crossroads of media and technology, first launched in 2015. The last MHW, held in October attracted 800 Ukrainian software developers, designers, marketers, and entrepreneurs. Here’s how it went:

Xamathon is a series of hackathons for Xamarin engineers. Organized by Microsoft, this year the event ran in cities across 14 Central and Eastern European countries, including a hackathon in Kyiv in November.

DEV_Challenge was the first ever design and development championship in Ukraine. Now, it takes place twice a year, with the last event attracting more than 3000 web and mobile developers, as well as UI/UX and game designers.

You can keep track of all the upcoming hackathons and competitions on the DOU event calendar. Narrow your search using the relevant tags (available in Russian and Ukrainian).

Online Communities

Forums and online communities may be another alternative way to find good quality software developers. Stack Overflow, SitePoint, CodeProject, and other online spaces are where many web and mobile developers, software engineers, and designers, from all over the world share opinions, ask and answer questions, and discuss the newest tech trends.

Registering an account only takes a few minutes, and after that you can easily post your project description and specify what skills you’re interested in. These communities are so large and active that there’s no chance your job offer will go unnoticed. Probably the coolest thing about forums is that you can check the reputation of those developers who respond to your job offer, learn how long they’ve been on the forum, and see whether their comments have been constructive.

Many Ukrainian and Russian-speaking software engineers are present on these forums, but there’s one online community for Ukrainian coders only — the aforementioned DOU.

This community features tech articles submitted by industry experts, a forum, constantly updated information on average Ukrainian developer salaries, a calendar with upcoming tech events, and last but certainly not least if your plan is to hire software engineers in Ukraine — a board for job offers.

Most of the content posted on DOU is in Russian, but you can switch to the English version in the bottom left corner of the screen. Although the website isn’t fully translated into English, navigating your way through the job section should be pretty easy. You’ll have to register your company first, and once you’ve done that, you’ll get the opportunity to post your vacancy.

Note that posting a job offer on DOU isn’t free: 1 job ad will cost you $20 per month, 10 — $190, 80 — $850, and 100 — $1600. But there are a lot of Ukrainian software developers using DOU to keep track of new jobs on the market, so you’re very likely to get a quick response.

Development Schools

You might scoff at the idea of hiring students, but this can actually be a great way to find talented contract programmers. There are plenty of coding schools in Ukraine, so why not contact them and take a look at the work their students are producing?

STEP Computer Academy has 35 branches across 15 countries, including 22 in Ukraine. The school is authorized by Microsoft, Cisco, and Autodesk. At STEP, students can learn software development, design, and cybersecurity.

GoIT has courses covering multiple programming languages, front-end development, iOS and Android development, as well as QA testing and UX design. The school functions in Kyiv and Kharkiv (Daxx is a partner of the latter), and has welcomed over 1500 students.

IT Education Academy has schools in Kyiv and Lviv. They provide courses covering Java,C++, PHP, Python, as well as those in Android and iOS development, QA testing, and UI/UX design.

CyberBionic Systematics is a Microsoft-supported training center that is predominantly tilted towards .NET development. However, it also features a variety of courses for front-end and back-end developers.

Open Source Code Contributors

Websites like GitHub provide an online code repository where software developers can collaborate on open source projects. This can help you in your hiring process, because you can look in detail at the code of the engineer you find promising before contacting them.

What Challenges Can You Expect?

If you want to hire a computer programmer on a freelance basis, you’ll quickly realize that the best of Ukrainian freelancers are booked for months in advance, and the ones who are ready to get started immediately may be newcomers who will need a lot of supervision.

Once you’ve found a great software developer, you may think that you have a few weeks to look around before making the final decision to hire them. But this certainly isn’t the case in Ukraine. The demand for Ukrainian engineers is very high, and if you hesitate about whether you should or shouldn’t take them onboard, they’re probably considering at least two or three other job offers that could be more attractive than yours. So act quickly.

Although the vast majority of Ukrainian software developers speak English at an intermediate level or higher, most forums, online communities, conferences, meetups, and networking events where you can meet developers are in Ukrainian or Russian. This means you might have to ask a local recruiter or a staffing agency to help you in your search for software development talent.

Opening your own office and hiring new people in a largely unfamiliar locale can be quite challenging, partly because you’ll need to get to grips with Ukrainian tax and labor laws.

Last but not least, working with a remote software developer means your business processes and workflow should be well-established and suited for a virtual arrangement.

How to Hire a Software Developer Remotely

You can try some or all of the strategies we’ve listed above, or partner up with a company like ours to help you hire a dedicated software developer from Ukraine.

If you decide to work with us, all you need to do is specify your requirements and wait a short while for our recruitment team to find and pre-screen the engineers that would make a perfect match for your project. You can then interview the suggested candidates via Skype, phone, or in a personal meeting.

Once you’ve approved the candidates you want to hire, we place them in one of our comfortable offices in Ukraine’s largest tech hubs — Kyiv, Dnipro, or Kharkiv — and provide them with all the hardware and software they need for work.

You manage your offshore software development team directly without any third-party involvement, while we take care of HR, retention, and all the administrative issues. These include the terms of employment for your dedicated developers, such as taxes, payroll, and sick days.

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Daxx Team

Daxx Team is a team of passionate creative writers, content marketers, designers who vigorously research internet as well as cooperate with developers and Managing Director at Daxx to provide you with the top-notch material about tech, salary trends, development team hiring and management tips as well as up-to-date information about Ukrainian IT outsourcing market.

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